Doug Wayne Gwosdz was a career backup catcher for the San Diego Padres, batting a putrid .144/.244/.202 (for those of you not familiar with “slash stats”, this refers to batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage) from 1981 through 1984. He possesses an unremarkable first name (I can find no record of his first name being anything other than Doug. You didn’t even think to name him “Douglas”, Mrs. Gwosdz?). He also has a non-descript middle name. These however are overcompensated by his “consonant jambalaya” of a last name.

Approximately 17,000 different players have suited up for a Major League Baseball game. Of those 17,000, about 4,300 of these players had last names of exactly six letters. Of those 4,300, a mere 330 or so had but ONE vowel in their name.¹ So what Doug lacked in on-field performance, he made up for in alphabetic rarity.

Upon hearing “Goosh”, I can only wish that Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh could have been the real-life batterymate of Gwosdz. It would have rivaled “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain”. We could have had “LaLoosh and Gwosdz . . . and the batters go whoosh!”